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“I hated Dusty when we were younger, but I grew to love her,” he said through the door. “Now I can’t imagine life without her.”
I opened the door, fully dressed. “I’ll try to make sure you don’t have to.”
“Would a bit of makeup kill you?” he asked. “Your eyelids look bald. Where are your eyelashes? How do you keep specks of dirt out of your eye without protection?”
“I could glue little knives to them, but then I wouldn’t be able to see.”
He grabbed my arm and tugged me into the bathroom, where he attacked my face with cotton pads and brushes.
The swan had made herself a nest on my pillow. “Great job, Gun. She looks like a million bucks. Magnarella won’t refuse us now.”
“Unless she misbehaves.” He pinched my arm. “Don’t misbehave.”
I smacked his hand. “No pinching. I’m not your sister.”
“Oh, he used to pinch me all the time when we were younger,” Dusty said. “It was his own special form of torture. He’d even pinch me under the table when Mom and Dad weren’t paying attention.”
“I outgrew it,” Gun said simply.
I noted the red mark on my arm. “Apparently not. Do it again and you’ll be missing two fingers, which I think you need to properly hold your tarot cards.”
Gun broke into a broad smile. “I have another hand.”
Once the transformation to honeytrap was complete, we exited the bedroom and returned downstairs.
“You look beautiful, Lorelei,” Ray said.
“You look like a hooker that hangs around outside those casinos in Atlantic City,” Nana Pratt countered.
“That’s very specific,” I told her. I was surprised Nana Pratt had stepped foot outside Fairhaven, let alone made it all the way to South Jersey.
“Maybe a little more cleavage,” Gun suggested. “If I had your boobs, they’d be on display more than diamonds at Tiffany’s.”
I pinned him with a deathly stare.
“Or maybe not,” he mumbled.
Gunther complained about riding in my aging pickup truck. “If Magnarella sees this truck, he’s going to reject you before you walk through the door.”
“He’s not pouring the elixir into the gas tank.”
“I don’t see why we couldn’t take my car. At least it’s fast enough to act as a getaway car if we need to escape.”
I cut him a quick glance. “It’s only lunch. No one will need to escape.”
The swan stuck her head between our seats. “If shit hits the fan, don’t worry about me. I can fly.”
“Twenty miles per hour,” Gun pointed out. “You won’t get very far.”
I followed the directions Gun had loaded onto the GPS. “Everything will be fine. No one will need to escape by wings or wheels. Remember, he wants this to work as much as you do.”
The swan’s head bobbed between us. “You’re right. I’m just getting nervous, that’s all. I’m starting to get a little too comfortable in my current form, and it’s freaking me out.”
Gunther kissed his sister’s feathered head. “We’ve got this, sis.”
The Magnarella compound made the Castle look like a hobbit hole. Enormous gates parted to admit the truck.
“Phew,” I said. “I was worried the gates would reject any vehicle worth less than fifty thousand dollars.” I parked outside the sweeping double staircase that led to the entrance.
